Author
Topic: MANGA! It's MANGA! (Read 20206 times)

Same as the 'ANIME! It's ANIME!' topic, only this time about the books.Awesome, I know.

For those yet uninitiated into the hobby, here's some quick info:

Quote from: 'Manga,' via Wikipedia

Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. Outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comics. As of 2007, manga represents a multi-billion dollar global market. Manga developed from a mixture of ukiyo-e and foreign styles of drawing, and took its current form shortly after World War II. It comes mainly in black and white, except for the covers and sometimes the first few pages; in some Animanga all the pages are colored.

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Though roughly equivalent to the American comic book, manga holds more importance in Japanese culture than comics do in American culture. In economic terms, weekly sales of comics in Japan exceed the entire annual output of the American comic industry. Several major manga magazines which contain about a dozen episodes from different authors sell several million copies each per week. Manga is well respected both as an art form and as a form of popular literature, though it has not reached the acceptance level of historically higher art genres such as film or music.

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Like its American counterpart, some manga has been criticized for being violent or sexual. For example, a number of film adaptations of manga such as Ichi the Killer or Old Boy were rated Restricted or Mature in the States. However, there have been no official inquiries or laws trying to limit what can be drawn in manga, except for vague decency laws applying to all published materials, stating that "overly indecent materials should not be sold." This freedom has allowed artists to draw manga for every age group and for about every topic.

So yeah. Manga is diverse (think of something, there's a manga of it) and contains some truly fascinating stories. Let's talk about some of them.

One of my current favorites is DEATH NOTE.

Death Note tells the story of Light Yagami, an honors high school student, who comes into possession of a book called the "Death Note." Once he touches it, he's able to see a shinigami, the Japanese equivalent of a grim reaper, and is told that anyone's name he writes into the Death Note will die. Light decides to use the book to kill off criminals of violent crimes in an attempt to create a utopia; but when Interpol brings in a special detective named 'L' to determine what's happening with all these criminals dropping dead, Light's strict sense of morality has to bend to protect himself from L's amazing talents.

It's a serious morality play with some outstanding cleverness and art thrown into it. It's being adapted into an anime and a feature film was released recently.

oh god manga, doesnt sound good at all. From what ive heard from white people that are really into asian stuff so much that they could be asian. Manga is for adults that read comics? No no this cant be good at all.

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